Bitfinex CTO claims almost $1bn has been raised in private token sale

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino has confirmed that the company has raised almost $1 billion from a private token sale for the exchange token LEO.

Ardoino, who has been the CTO at Bitfinex since 2015, claimed on Twitter that the reason the exchange was able to raise $1 billion in 10 days was due to the trustworthiness of the brand.

The ongoing public skepticism surrounding Bitfinex came to a crescendo two weeks ago when the New York Attorney General’s Office alleged that Bitfinex had “engaged in a cover-up to hide the loss of $850 million in client and corporate funds”.

In an attempt to cover the seized $850 million, Bitfinex decided to launch a token sale, which is close to selling out after 10 days.

“Private companies, giants in our industry and outside, made investments for >$100m each. A legion of inside and outside users made investments for >$1m each,” Ardoino said on Twitter.

He continued: “Why? Because they know we are trustworthy, they recognise what we have been doing (without needing us bragging about it publicly), and they want us to keep fighting for the industry as a whole. Their own words. Thank you everyone for the amazing support we got. We are impressed.”

While most of the allocation has sold out, Bitfinex plans to sell the remaining tokens in a public sale, as confirmed by Ardoino: “There is a small allocation left and we just prefer to share to small investors until there is time. We have a request from a few big buyers to buy the few millions left once we close it. But we believed it’s more fair to give opportunity to a larger audience.”

Bitfinex’s native stablecoin, USD-Tether, has also come under intense scrutiny over the past few weeks, with criticism being raised in relation to the transparency of Bitfinex’s banking arrangements.

Ardoino said: “We’re working with Tether to make our banking more transparent. More in coming weeks.”

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